Essays on law, leadership, technology, and "things" – and arts, culture, intellectual property, and commons – and entrepreneurship and innovation – and higher education – and Pittsburgh and urbanism. One law professor's views of the world.

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I have been posting at madisonian.net since 2004. From 2003 to 2011, I also wrote at Pittsblog, about regional economic development and the re-emergence of one particularly interesting city and region: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh-themed posts will appear here from time to time.

I publish a related calendar of academic events in intellectual property and information technology law and policy at IP and IT Conferences.

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Thought Police at the RIAA?

The Recording Industry Association of American thumped music downloader Joel Tenenbaum at trial, and now the RIAA wants him to act the repentant sinner? Michael Vick volunteered to do penance by helping with the anti-dogfighting campaign of The Humane Society of the United States, but if he hadn’t done so, would he have been back in court?

In August, a person upset about the court’s decision posted the list of the songs named in the case on The Pirate Bay, a Swedish file-sharing Web site, encouraging others to download them in protest. A picture of a defiant-looking “DJ Joel” accompanies the list, advertised as “approved by the RIAA.” A link to a blog gives a rationale for posting the track list: “I wanted to let the RIAA know that I too downloaded those songs. I wanted to let them know: they cannot fight the sharing with violence. We will download. We will share.” …

Mr. Tenenbaum’s legal team noticed people downloading the track list and posted a note on Twitter in mid-August: “interesting: a ‘joel’ torrent list of the 30 songs is now on thepiratebay/other torrent sites and is being DL widely in protest.”

Cara Duckworth, the RIAA’s vice president for communications, said in an interview on Thursday that the message is “a clear example of him thumbing his nose at the verdict and not taking us seriously.” She said Mr. Tenenbaum is likely not behind the posting on Pirate Bay, but argued that he should not encourage others to look at the Web site. …

On Tuesday, it filed for injunctive relief in a federal court in Massachusetts.

An injunction against what? Is this contributory infringement or “inducing” infringement? Doubtful. Or is it a public comment on a controversial — even notorious — copyright litigation, in which Tenenbaum and his supporters fail to respect the majesty of the RIAA? The RIAA’s position seems to be consistent with its earlier post-trial statement that Joel Tenenbaum is akin to a addict whose drug of choice is music: “Mr. Tenenbaum is a hard-core, habitual and unrepentant p2p abuser who has caused harm to the music community.” It appears that it wants the court to do the equivalent of ordering him into rehab. Or at least shut him up.